Your business needs direction and you must choose that direction by setting goals. Some of these goals involve far-off visions, probably the ones that inspired you to start the business in the first place. Other goals refer to much shorter time frames and spell out the milestones you need to reach on the way to your larger vision. Making sure short-term goals serve long-term goals can mean success for your business.

Vision

You must write down where you want your business to be in three to five years, according to Peter Vanden Bos of "Inc." magazine. These goals should explain what you want in terms of market share. You should be clear on what the size of your company should be as it relates to both sales and number of employees, net worth of the company and your income from the company.

Backward Steps

Once you know where you want to go, think about what needs to happen just before you reach each of your long-term goals. For example, if you want to achieve sales of $1 million, just before that you should note when you would achieve the milestone of $750,000 in sales. Ask yourself when you will reach the $750,000 level. Keep working backward to the present day and set dates for each step. Make a list of steps for each long-term goal.

Categorizing

Once you have all of your steps, place each chain of steps into categories. Some will relate to sales, others to profits, others to expansion and still others to advertising and marketing. You may find unique categories that pertain to your specific operation. By categorizing the steps, you relate them to your existing business practices.

Create Objectives

You should create objectives for each aspect of your business operation based on the categorization of your steps. Objectives are the stepping stones, the steps are the path and the vision is the destination. You should list very short-term -- immediate -- goals, your short-term goals and then long-term goals in sequence, so that you can make sure every activity you engage in contributes to your overall vision for your company.

About the Author

Kevin Johnston writes for Ameriprise Financial, the Rutgers University MBA Program and Evan Carmichael. He has written about business, marketing, finance, sales and investing for publications such as "The New York Daily News," "Business Age" and "Nation's Business." He is an instructional designer with credits for companies such as ADP, Standard and Poor's and Bank of America.

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Johnston, Kevin. "How to Set Short-Term and Long-Term Goals for a Business." Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/set-shortterm-longterm-goals-business-55479.html. Accessed 14 August 2018.

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